MJ & The Wicked Crooked

DAY OFF. THEORETICALLY. Today we shift to a Sunday to Thursday week with a Friday-Saturday weekend. It's something a lot of shows do because it's easier to get into locations on a Sunday that you would never be able to shoot in during the week -- an office, or a courthouse, or a bank, for instance. Even a Bar is more likely to close for you on a Sunday than, say, a Thursday.

The Story Department is also switching over, because, well, if you don't -- you kind of wind up working six days a week anyway.

So today is my weekend. And it's a gorgeous, Sunny day in St. John's. So that's something.

Except...

I have a big rewrite to do on the show after the show that's prepping now. Again, it's the third script I've passed this week. Boo hoo for me. I expect no tears -- that's the gig. But does the sun have to be quite so shiny? Does the reflection off the water have to be so beautifully brilliant?

Sigh.

In other news, I've had wearying and disconnected thoughts about the whole Michael Jackson thing and just didn't even have the energy to articulate them. Luckily, my friend Howard has. Go read his new blog, Medium Close Up on the subject. It's a bracing dose of "how the hell did we get here really?"

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to leave this dark coffee shop now and find somewhere to set up the laptop where I can at least see the Narrows. I'm thinking The Rooms.

Enjoy your weekend.

You Aint Going Nowhere

ONE OF THE funniest things about working and living in St. John's is trying to get around, when you come from away.

It's something my friend Jeff told me just before I left Toronto. "Wait til the first time you have to ask for directions."

I didn't know exactly what he meant, but I had a slight gleaning. You look at a map of St. John's and environs and you see the million little cowpaths that make up the city's road system; eddies and gouges worn through long before motorcars or locomotion entered the equation.

Add in steep banking hills and constantly changing topography, and ... well, no, actually, it still doesn't prepare you for

Rawlins Cross. Nothing prepares you for Rawlins Cross.

The first time I found myself at Rawlins Cross, I had to pull over once I'd cleared it and have myself a good little cry.

But for the most part you learn your routes and your ways of getting places, and you never, ever, ever try to find a different way, and town isn't all that big, so you get by.

Unless you have to ask where you're going.

"Oh, if you want to get there, b'y, you gotta go up past the old church and turn left at where the Drugstore used to be; then keep going straight and when you've hit the North Atlantic station you've gone too far."

Um. Sorry?

"Yer going to go past the old Rec center, past that restaurant that used to be the Afghan place."

Are either of these things marked? The rec centre? The Afghan place?"

"Are you retarded? They're not there anymore."

Oh. Thank you.

[Drives away aimlessly and sadly]

I have been here almost three months. In that time, I've been directed to go up past the where the funeral home is, told to turn left at the "ugly green house" and told to go the address on Water Street "where the motorcycles are usually in front."

My lovely Story Coordinator, K.MacRhubarb, who will henceforth replace Jimmy the Bat in stories of yore, (Sorry Jimmy, and ladies, he's still single, and also available for work -- I can send you a resume and a glossy) just yesterday, told me about a way to get somewhere that required me to go past the "Old Zellers Mall." Now, understand, there is no Zellers in this mall. You don't describe it in terms of the name of the Mall, which is fine, because it's not like there's a sign at the mall, either.

They all know the reference points, how to get around, where to go, and the best way to get there. And they'd love to tell you, they're only too happy to do so -- but sadly, it's like that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Picard was marooned on the planet with the dude from the species who was only able to talk in metaphors that referenced his people's past history.

So, yeah, I'd really like to go find the place they're scouting to shoot Thursday, but I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to go seek out Darmok at Tanagra where the walls fell. I mean, I haven't even had a fucking coffee yet.

I started laughing about this yesterday, and one of the other writers, Perry, (co-creator of Republic of Doyle) said that he remembered being bewildered as an adult when someone asked him how many blocks away something was.

They just don't think this way. Where a road dead ends up a hill and circles around, and an intersection has four or five choices -- what's a block, anyway?

I think of my early socialization, numbered streets, East-West, where the direction changes, the grid, long New York blocks and realize anew how different your reference points can be, and how that shapes the way you relate to distance.

That still doesn't mean, you know, that an address wouldn't help now and then. Cause it's hard getting that out of people sometimes. And here's the kicker: Google Maps is wrong. Seriously. A lot of the time, their directions in St. John's suck.

Still, even if it was accurate, I'm not sure that this morning at 8'o'clock that I would have gotten much luck with putting in, "_____Scrapyard, Blackhead Road in Shea Heights on the way to Cape Spear."

I mean, Google Maps is cool. But not that cool.

Thank God the 2nd AD called as I was in my car, thinking about...I don't know... driving aimlessly till I hit a cliff.

Ah well.

You know, this is probably all because the day after they joined Confederation, we made them switch to driving on the right. Seriously. People have ways of getting back at you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a phone charger. I think I'm going to start out looking at the store by the thing on the way to the Capelin, hang a left at that place the whale beached back in 92.

And Away We Go

FIRST SHOT, 8:12 A.M. NT.

Here we go.

I Don't Believe We're On The Eve of Production

SETS ARE BEING hammered and painted and dressed; the schedule arranged for exterior shooting first so as to extend those last few precious days to be ready. The drumbeat of people starting in the office has slowed to a crawl, and the last few will come in tomorrow.

Another new Director on the ground, ready to take up the call of the next script to prep.

The story department is already tight. My head's in the episode that shoots third. We need to speed up the delivery of that which shoots fourth. Five go on the blocks before the first hiatus.

It's nice, now, to see people as busy and engaged as the story department has been for weeks. Casting's in full swing, and I'm awash with Facebook and emails from friends back in Toronto who didn't realize they were auditioning for the show I work on.

So it all comes down to this. Seven A.M. NT, while the rest of the country is well asleep, but two hours after sunrise here, the unit for Republic of Doyle will assemble for the first time in St. John's. We'll be filming scenes for the third episode to air -- shooting it first so as to break in the crew and make sure they're a well honed and oiled machine before we tackle the script that the viewing public sees first.

That's a script I have to tackle myself later this week -- all part of the polish and prep that came from giving it an early read through last Thursday.

We talk a lot on this blog and elsewhere about what a Canadian show should mean; what it means to be "culturally Canadian." Whether or not trying to craft shows for an American network is a good or a bad strategy (I think it's a bit of both.)

And yet, here I am. Tomorrow I'll show up for first shot, and I'll see Robert Joy there -- who we're lucky enough to get for a guest shot. I was talking to Robert a bit at our kickoff party on Friday night, and he was thrilled to be here. From CSI: NY back to here. Joy was involved in early incarnations of Codco; he's just one of the actors with ties to Newfoundland that this show is proudly repatriating.

I'm looking forward to seeing Mike Clattenburg behind the lens; he's up from Halifax to take us into our first show and the Pilot, which shoots third. Back home, he's in post with the second Trailer Park Boys movie, so we're lucky to have him. If I stick around, or come back to set later in the day, I'll see the first scene of what I hope will be a recurring character in the show, played by Greg Malone, who Canadian comedy fans will remember from Codco. I'm re-reading Greg's excellent autobiography about his childhood growing up in St. John's right now, in my copious free time. I remember so clearly seeing the vibrant, hilarious, odd and wonderful Codco on CBC in the 80's when I was a university student. The one-two punch of Codco and Kids in the Hall kept Canada on the Comedy vanguard -- a proud line stretching from Wayne & Shuster to the Canadians who made SNL and SCTV what they were.

That's only tomorrow, too. In a few days I'll be able to watch the inimitable Mary Walsh, from Codco and This Hour Has 22 Minutes, command the showy guest lead at the heart of this ep.

I don't mean to be dropping names here; and the fact is that there are so many other artists who are engaged and ready to work and bring their best; not the least of which is the show's co-creator and star, Allan Hawco. I guess the point that I'm reaching for is, again, my utter amazement that we spend so much time lamenting the lack of caring about telling homegrown stories. And most of the new friends I've made here might even take issue with me calling this show a Canadian story. I have my Newfoundland Liberation Army t-shirt to prove it.

But for this come-from-away mainlander who spends a good portion of days wondering, "why DON'T I just decamp, quit fighting and go down to L.A.?" or if, in fact, Canadians will ever tire of having their TV culture colonized and learn to love and embrace it as well as they have their homegrown music -- for a guy who sits in WGC Council strategy sessions trying to plan the next tooth and nail fight just to hang on to a scrap of indigenous creative control, here I sit, the night before it all starts. And I think on the fact that tomorrow I see two generations of Canadian comedy royalty both in front of and behind the camera; that I spent last night watching Ron Hynes belt out the finest songs I'd heard in months in a small little blues club on George Street; that I curled up on the couch in the pouring rain today and laughed out loud at Malone's tales of playing doctor with his childhood friend, and I know, I know instinctively that I'm here, I'm in the place I always wished I could be -- a place that cares about itself and its own history and culture... I go to work tomorrow on a show, in a place, at a time where they have a fierce and sure sense of themselves, a vibrancy of history and culture and storytelling bravura; and I know this is it, the chance maybe for a Canadian Cracker....or maybe the cheeky Rockford Files on the Rock...an unabashed entertainment that knows what it is, and never apologizes; a show that finally achieves universality through essaying the specific, beautiful, wondrous, odd, strange and enrapturing culture I've had the pleasure of dipping my toe into these last two months. Not the caricature. The real thing. A distinct society, indeed. We argue the wrong things in our country, sometimes. Distinct society. My God, we have at least three or four!

But anyway, here I am. A place where stories flow and royalty mix and show up to bring it all together.

There will be knocks and bumps and rain and snags; but finally, oh finally, finally it's all about to begin. I have to go now. I have to be up early. I want a good seat in video village.

See you around, St. John's. We're here til December!

On Mops and Pails and Snarls and Multitudes

OH DEAR. I really tried taking the high road yesterday with my response to Doyle's writer on writer violence in yesterday's Mop & Pail. (WoW Violence; I can see a couple of my friends shaking their heads and saying, "first world problem...") But seeing as my Guild's President, Rebecca Schechter weighs in in a letter to the editor today, maybe we should print that:

John Doyle returned from Buenos Aires in the spirit of a soccer hooligan, taking a swipe at the biggest fans of Canadian television: Canadian TV writers (TV Writers - Study The Leamington Big Tomato - Review, June 11). Mr. Doyle cuts a wide swath for sins of snobbery he admits apply only "to a few."

I've never met anyone interested in making TV that no one wants to watch. Mr. Doyle knows this - he was in that airless CRTC room last year when the Writers Guild of Canada and four screenwriters fought against the proposal to split the Canadian Television Fund into commercial and cultural streams. It was Canadian TV writers who argued that the two can't be separated.

What we should be worried about isn't snobbish Canadian writers, it's a push with the new funding model - in which U.S. networks bulk up their prime-time skeds with programs bought cheaply in Canada - to spend CTF money on stories written for generic Anytown-USA productions. The CTF is a limited fund and meant to support stories written by Canadians aimed at Canadians. "Canadian and commercial" are as synonymous as "American and commercial," and every Canadian screenwriter knows it.

Hoo boy, though -- knowing that Doyle is a card-carrying Irishman, and how much my ancestral people love taking the piss, a tea leaf read of MisterJohnDoyle's Twittering reveals himself may just be in this game for the sport of it:

Currently v. amused by defensive, kneejerk snarling from TV writers. At least they're not stabbing each other with their pencils todayabout 17 hours ago from web

Which is weird, since I thought I was kind of conciliatory to his Doyleness yesterday. And the column he wrote only had like, oh, two comments. So, what's this snarling he's talking about?

Maybe he IS just funning. Hmm. In that spirit of puckishness, it's probably not wise to try and refute the trickster meself. I'll need someone far more credible. Someone he'll respect and listen to. Where could I find such a beast? Ah. Wait. I know.

What I'm wondering is this: Where are the Canadian cultural warriors ready, willing and able to articulate why we need Canadian-made television?...Perhaps those who actually make Canadian TV are cowering in fear. Perhaps they are afraid of the cable companies. If so, they should be ashamed of themselves. Soon, it will be too late and the question will be this: Who speaks for the dead?

John Doyle, Globe & Mail, Feb 15, 2007.

So. Um. Fight for what's right and stand up for yourself... Just don't criticize the producer of a CTV Globemedia property when she says something dumb to the New York Times. Got it. I wonder if there's any other rules I should know?

You know, on further reflection, maybe it's not a sense of puckishness at work here. Maybe it's just fatigue. You know how sometimes you come back from vacation tired instead of refreshed? Maybe he's just tired. After all, Doyle has a history of coming back to the job grumpy. Maybe that's why Canadian writers complaining about lack of promotion and stuff make him so... what? What's that?

While I was away - I came back grumpy, obviously - an issue blew up. Chris Haddock, creator of Da Vinci's Inquest and Intelligence, complained - during an interview with a reporter - about CBC's lack of promotion for Intelligence. He had a point. In a response, a CBC spokeschappy took this condescending view: "We have not yet made a decision as to whether we'll continue with the show; when we do, Chris will be the first to know...Spokeschappy also tut-tutted about Haddock's "attempts to negotiate through the media his relationship with the CBC."

Worse, the normally sensible Denis McGrath, a TV screenwriter of some note, tut-tutted in his blog, "I'm with the CBC on one thing on this: This is not something that should be playing out in the media."

What utter nonsense. The Canadian TV racket suffers from enough don't-quote-me wussiness as it is. There is so much fear of angering some self-aggrandizing TV exec that hardly anyone speaks the truth, out loud, to the press... Another TV writer going all meek and mousy on the subject is disheartening. I really hate that.

John Doyle, Globe & Mail, December 18, 2007.

So...uh... If you speak out and defend Chris Haddock, you're golden. If you defend writers in general, you're...um...wait. I'm starting to lose the plot on this. You know what? Maybe the problem is something else entirely. Maybe the problem is that, well, we're all just a little too...Canadian...

It's part of the national character, I think. We're not abusive, as American complainers sometimes are. And we don't believe in organizing a mass-action complaint, as Americans do. We get indignant. Then the person receiving the complaint gets really indignant in response.

John Doyle, Globe & Mail, Nov 25, 2003

See, people? The cycle of writer on writer violence continues, all because we're locked into being Canadian. Well, I for one will have none of it. I love you, John Doyle. All of yous. The soccer partisan and the TV theorist and the industry defender and the TV Racket nose tweaker.

As I used to say every time one of Doyle's escalating slams of The Border wafted through the story department... "Did he mention the show? And get the time right? Then we're good."

Last night I said on Facebook "not taking the bait." Yet here we are. He's a wily and provocative one, that Doyle. I guess in the end, maybe we both should fall back on a better writer than both of us:

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then, I contradict myself.

I am large, I contain multitudes.

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself.

Oh, snap.

A Tale of Two Governments

WORKING ON A new series is always an amazing, upward learning curve. The first steps when you get in the room, and take that Bible that sold the show and try to figure out how to get it on its feet and translate that selling document to series; the back and forth as a new writing team tries to gel and find their way; the kludge-together let's start something here as production comes together, producers toil, and a creator tries to open up and shift that thinking from "let's make a pilot" to "let's make a series..." with enthusiasm and hope and tenacity and generosity of spirit intact...

It's all possibility at this point. And professionals who smile and try to conceal the excitement..."is this really going to happen?" "Are we really doing this?"

The exciting becomes transcendant when you find yourself in a place that's new and exciting to you. I felt this way when I first went to South Africa. I feel it again here in St. John's.

It happens in little ways, as you peel back and discover other elements of the culture that makes this rugged land and this beautiful city so very, very different. It happens when you drive winding roads and look out to sea and see your first Iceberg. It happens when your charismatic lead actor and Executive Producer reminds you that he's a first-generation Canadian; the son of people born into the separate nation of Newfoundland. It happens as you contemplate the hundred different little ways the culture here is different, yet undeniably alive. It makes you think, think of all the other places you've been in this great nation -- Alberta, where they never met a U.S. idea they didn't like, and where they hate the CBC like it's a religious rite. I think of the Calgarians I know who seem as surrounded as liberals in Austin, Texas. I think of Vancouver, aloof and a little smug about its beauty and wonder; as I stare now out the window at its easy equal. I think of winding stone streets in Vieux Montreal, the steps leading up to the Chateau in Quebec City. I think of the few days I spent up in Thunder Bay, another few in Halifax, the sunny times spent on Parliament Hill or wandering the Byward Market in Ottawa. I close my eyes and picture the ferry ride to Vancouver Island, lovely and still through the summer fog of morning. I recall my own teeming, shiny, stinky and occasionally humid Toronto, and how beautiful and majestic the Legislature looked at night the one time I visited Regina, and viewed the place where Medicare began. I think of this wonderful, different, vibrant country -- its parts seemingly ever at war or resentment with each other.

And as I prepare to help craft stories that show off one beautiful part the way it hasn't been shown before, all I can think of is what a gift Canadians miss by not being able to see stories told about all the funky, silly, crazy, wondrous, scary, nifty and puzzling people I've met in all these wonderful cities in this great and vast and puzzling land.

I think of how this short-sighted debate has been going on for some time. And I think about how little Canadians know of their own government. Little enough that they misunderstand the very process of parliamentary democracy itself. And I curse again the colonized culture that makes those lessons invisible. And then I realize: that's not strictly true. Ontarians don't know a lot. Albertans think they know, but honestly, I've looked -- it's a photocopy or an American ideal of the west. B.C. just hates Toronto. Right now I'm in a place that understands the value of its culture -- and just coincidentally it's a place where the culture has been ridiculed by the rest of Canada for a long time.

So it was today that this was read out in the legislature of the great Province of Newfoundland and Labrador:

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation recently approved its upcoming television season lineup, and confirmed that a one-hour father-son police drama, entitled Republic of Doyle, will be among the new shows featured next year.

Republic of Doyle is one of the biggest budget television series ever produced in Canada – and the 12 episodes commissioned to date will be filmed right here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

This is an unprecedented opportunity for our film industry, and for film industry workers in this province. We recognized this when the producers approached us last year with a view to securing our financial support in making the television series a reality.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has committed $1.5 million in film equity funding to the project in Budget 2009 to ensure this province accrues the maximum benefits from this television production. The size of this production will also enable producers to avail of approximately $3 million through the Newfoundland and Labrador Film and Video Tax Credit.

Therefore, the direct commitment from the Provincial Government in Republic of Doyle is $4.5 million, with economic spin-off activities estimated to result in about $11.3 million in benefits to the local economy.

Contrast that with the fabulous recent efforts of our central, National government.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Ottawa, these guys, and these guys and these guys continue to fight a battle over millions, where the only surety is that at some point they're going to complain about the need to throw breadcrumbs to support the very process I'm starting right now here in St. John's.

It's a pretty stomach-churning display. It's one of those times that I'm very glad to be very far away, where the sound of the sea drowns out the sound of money, and the local culture can be seen, felt, and heard all about you. It exists in Canada.

At least in parts of it, it does.

Touchdown Rock

TOMORROW IT STARTS.

By the bye, you can really feel that extra half hour :)

How'd the begfest at the CRTC trough go...?

...nah, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Blue Skies, Smling at Me...

BILL BRIOUX talked to me, as well as esteemed writer/bloggers JIm Henshaw, John Rogers and Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan about recession-era TV, and how it's affecting what you see on the Box:

As Denis McGrath, a former writer for CBC's The Border sees it, it is all about networks feeling our pain and not wanting to be behind the curve. "We've got to do something to acknowledge what people are going through," he sees them saying, "because there is a danger of being out of step with what people want to see."

McGrath is about to take his own step toward the light. He leaves this week for Newfoundland, where he will run the writing room on The Republic of Doyle, an upcoming CBC private-eye drama he describes as retro and fun. But even darker shows like AMCs' Emmy-winning Breaking Bad – a show about a dying school teacher (Bryan Cranston) so desperate to provide for his family he turns to selling drugs – have had to adjust to the new economic reality.

"Reality does impact, and you can't help but pay attention to what's going on in the newspapers every day," says Breaking Bad creator/producer Vince Gilligan. He sees his show as being about "a good man who makes a very bad decision" and then "the cascade of consequences, the domino effect from that decision." It is an extreme example of what a lot of people are dealing with today.

Suddenly, CEOs and bankers are the new bad guys on TV. The Canadian-born creator of the American cable drama Leverage, John Rogers, says the recession probably helped his show get a second season because many of his stories focus on people going after corporate criminals. McGrath found it interesting that the creators of the midseason ABC comedy Better Off Ted had tapped into a growing cynicism and mistrust about the corporate world. "It has finally sunk in that these guys have wrecked our economy," says McGrath.

There is word leaking out from Friday Night Lights that job-loss storylines will be on the agenda next season. "It's certainly on producer's and writer's minds and that means those kind of stories will be on the table in the coming weeks," says veteran Canadian TV screenwriter Jim Henshaw (BeastMaster).

"The only thing the networks want to see right now are what the networks are calling `Blue Sky Shows,'" says McGrath, who has heard through his agent and writer friends in L.A. that "Happy stuff` is all the rage. "All those Criminal Minds, CSIs, dark, crime procedurals are in real trouble.

"When the real news is all doom and gloom, the dive to comedy and escapism is almost a reflex."

CBC TeeVee & Me: Down East Edition

SOMEBODY, I'M NOT sure who, once pointed out that CBC has four distinct programming seasons: Summer, Fall, Winter and Hockey.

Well, CBC today announced the highlights of the big two of those seasons: Fall and Winter.

Besides returning shows like Little Mosque on the Prairie, The Border, Being Erica, Heartland, The Tudors, Dragon's Den, The Mercer Report and This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Canada's public broadcaster will be adding a figure-skating based reality series, and a spelling-bee like reality show. Also new is venerable CBC favourite Ron James, in an eponymously named sketch comedy show.

As for January?

Two new shows will premiere during the winter: 18 to Life, a domestic comedy about a couple who marry at 18, and Republic of Doyle, a one-hour, St. John's-set dramatic comedy about a dysfunctional father-son private investigator team.

I've been waiting for this official announcement to hit, cause now I can finally confirm the scuttlebutt that's been floating about for the last little bit. I'm very happy to be able to say that I've signed on to run the writing room on Republic of Doyle.

This is the project I blogged briefly about back in February, when I went out for a working weekend in St. John's.

Sometimes when a series gears up after a pilot there's an initial trepidation. Will it work as a series? Is it sustainable? I don't feel any of that going into Republic of Doyle. Allan Hawco, one of the show's creators and its lead actor, is a young actor who's already an old hand at the business. He's got smarts, passion for miles, and a clear, infectious sense of the show he wants to see -- and how he wants to see his city presented. It's a show that's pure entertainment, that's going to feel fresh and fun -- and it's going to be a love letter to St. John's to boot.

Even before I went to Newfoundland, from the very first meeting I had with Hawco and his producing partners John Vatcher and Rob Blackie, at an extremely generic Jack Astor's in downtown Toronto, my spidey sense said that these guys were kindred -- all looking to do a show that's work worth doing, and worth having a lot of fun doing it. Then Hawco and I sealed some kind of mojo-devil magic at one of the craziest nights I have EVER had at The Paddock.

Once I met Perry Chafe, Hawco's writing partner, and jawed a bit more with Malcolm MacRury, who helped them write the pilot, and we got down to breaking story, I started getting really excited. Anticipating a new show is kind of like falling in love that way.

So there it is. I've drunk the KoolAid. Harrrd. Next week I'm on a plane to St. John's, and hopefully, touch wood, all goes well, I'll be there most of 2009, doing the thing I love, and helping other people to do the thing they love. It's a good life, I think.

That's going to mean changes and evolutions not just for my life, but for this blog. No, in case you were wondering, I shall not miss being at the centre of the universe (note to the rest of the country: nobody in Toronto EVER actually thinks of the city this way.) I won't miss being far from the networks, or from the gossip. I won't miss the occasional sniff of toxic weirdness that seems to have crept out a lot more in the last month or two. But I will miss all my wonderful friends, and the streets I know so well. I'll have to sneak back for a weekend now and again. (As well, I'm working with the WGC to figure out the ways I can continue to discharge my Councillor duties.)

Your life prepares you for things in funny ways. I've been in this place before -- poised to go somewhere utterly new to write a chapter of a new adventure. For years now, I've harboured a kind of fascination for Newfoundland, that didn't just begin and end with The Shipping News. No, I've found myself drawn to myth like The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, the modern day movement of Michael Winter's This All Happened, the Iambics of Newfoundland...I've had a strange running series of books on my bedside table.

But to be so far away and so head-down-and-working means that, oh, say....CRTC...yeah, I hate to say it, but I can't see writing much of that up for the moment. Good thing you've got the WGC blasts and Kelly Lynne Ashton's Twitters and La Walton's ink reportage to fall back on.

I'm going to say right now that blogging's liable to be light for the foreseeable future. I've got to, first, do a thousand things to be ready to get out of Dodge, and second, immerse myself into getting stories into the pipeline. It's going to be more than all-consuming.

I can't say that there won't be craft dispatches along the way, maybe along the line of the kinds of things I wrote when I was working on the first season of the ex-show...but at the same time, I'm a big believer that the first impression you get of a show should be of the work itself. So you're not going to hear a lot about Republic of Doyle. Nope. Not til you see it in January 2010.

This is a chance to re-order certain attentions and patterns in my life, too. This blog hasn't been as fun for me to do for a while now. Maybe I'll have a chance to rediscover what was fun about doing it with a change of scene. To fill the gaps this summer, I'm going to be trying to wrangle other Canadian writers to take up a Dead Things Residency for a week at a time.

A bold experiment, I guess. See if it works.

In the meantime, I hope you'll all continue to come back here when there's something new, and that you'll continue to try and find the creative spark and courage in your own lives. Little Darling, I feel the ice is slowly melting. And over the last months, it really has seemed like years since it's been clear.

But now, here comes the sun -- and there's something new, and shiny, and wonderful to play with -- and new kids in the sandbox to dream with, too.

Can't. Hardly. Wait.